


Missing Tragedy

by anotherbuskitten



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5104667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherbuskitten/pseuds/anotherbuskitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andromeda is cursed so as to never be there for her loved ones die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Tragedy

[1]

This is how it starts; her father dies when she’s 11 and just starting school and her big sister corners her after Transfiguration two weeks after term starts and - -

This is how it starts:

She is second born and boring while Bella is old enough to be wild and heartless. So she is in charge of baby Cissa while father makes money and important friends. Mother is only a month post giving birth when she becomes pregnant again.

Father is out, mother is ill and Bella is out of control so Andromeda is in charge of the household.

Mother is ill and it shows; her pallor is white and ice cold, her eyes are dull and lifeless and she leaves her bed for nothing but baths.

The healer comes and pronounces her sick with scarlet fever and with the baby on the way it will be a miracle if she survives.

So at night, when the house is calm Andromeda prays for a miracle.

Seven months later both the baby and mother die. Andromeda had left the room to find Cissa and when they returned mother’s breath had ceased.

Andromeda called the healer and father but neither came in time. Mother was dead, and any goodbyes she may have had were said to air.

Father fell to the melancholy and grandfather said it was a blessed thing he was not heir or the whole family would follow Drusilla. Bella kicked him in the shin and they were banished from the family for a short while. Father didn’t seem to notice.

After mother’s death Bella took on more of a role in the household. She said that her sister was alright but no true mother and relegated Andromeda to becoming Narcissa’s full time carer. She herself took on the business side of things.

Father’s chills grew worse each day; until the two sisters were certain they would remain in charge of the house for all their lives.

Andromeda, only a year away from being Hogwarts age was inconsolable at the thought.

Narcissa was a fussy child and the apple of her father’s eye. She was more Mulciber than Black and somedays she seemed almost enough to pull father out of his slump.

Narcissa turns 4 in the spring of 1961 and Andromeda 11 in the winter. Around this time an heir had been born to their aunt and uncle and with all the celebrations they are welcomed back into the fold.

[2]

She is just into school and it’s brilliant; everything is just as she imagined it and she is just as brilliant as she has always known.

Transfiguration’s probably her least favourite class if only because McGonagall treats her with a ridiculous amount of suspicion for an eleven year old.

It’s fitting then, at least in her mind, that the bad news arrives after a particularly awful lesson.

Bellatrix finds her immediately after the lesson. She scares the other students away with just a look; Andromeda’s the only one not affected – Bellatrix scares her of course, but they rely on each other far too much for Andromeda to truly fear her.

The letter doesn’t shock her either. Father’s been dead much longer than he has alive in her opinion, ever since mother died. There was never any affection between Cygnus and his eldest daughters and his death while worrying in terms of familial security was little other than an unpleasant distraction from school.

Still, he was her father and she did mourn him, at least more than Bellatrix who was only concerned with where they’d end up know they had no guardians.

[3]

Uncle Orion and Aunt Walburga hadn’t been the nicest stand-in parents but they had at least shown no particular favouritism to their own children.

Narcissa had blossomed from having two younger brothers to rule over and while Bellatrix tried her best to influence Sirius into obeying her every word he responded better to the mothering that had become natural for Andromeda.

Even so she never blamed him for the split between her and her elder sister. Sirius was her favourite relative by far and the only one to stick with her after her split from the family.

His arrest didn’t really come as a shock to her though. He was so very much like Bellatrix that she couldn’t help but be concerned for him during the war.

His escape, over a decade later, terrified her – for all the wrong reasons.

She was scared that Nymphadora would be ostracised at work for her bloodline, something which, thus far, she’d had managed to avoid due to her surname.

She was scared Sirius would be caught and have his soul sucked out; he was still her little brother after all and the dementor’s kiss was something she was unable to rationalise even in the worst cases.

Most of all she was scared that she’d lose another of her rapidly diminishing family.

So after he had managed to survive for almost three years she had relaxed and her fears had settled into the same consistent but background worry she felt about her daughter’s job.

Then Nymphadora ended up in St. Mungo’s – on a day off of all things – and when she and Ted hurried over they weren’t allowed to see her. They’d been aware, tangentially, of Nymphadora’s involvement in one of Albus Dumbledore’s schemes but they’d never believed he’d put her in any danger.

Two days later when they’re finally allowed to see their daughter it’s already too late for her to tell them anything – the story of the battle in the ministry has spread through the gossips of wizarding Britain like fiendfyre.

The only new bit of news Nymphadora can give them is that Sirius has died. Even then it takes a few more days for Andromeda to fully realise the news; too relived as she is that her daughter is ok.

When she does finally come to terms with it she is by no means as unfeeling or uncaring as her daughter suggests she is only taking solace in the fact that, like her father, Sirius Black probably stopped living a long time before his curtain fell.

[4]

She marries Ted when she was seventeen. It’s one of her happiest memories; a cold day in February on a Hogsmeade Sunday, catching the night bus to a chapel and sealing the knot before anyone could take him from her.

There’s a barn owl as his best man, and no one to give her away, and the rings are transfigured out of a chocolate frog wrapper.

Ted never quite understands the urgency with which it happens; he somewhat believes she was just being wild and impulsive.

She doesn’t tell him her family history all at once but in drips and drabs over the course of their lifetime together.

Until she met she hadn’t believed in love like theirs. She only heard of it from muggle stories and it made sense to her that muggles would need to believe they had love when they didn’t have magic.

Andromeda loved her sisters and her brothers but from the time she was fifteen to twenty-four Ted was her world.

In the early autumn of 1997 her husband leaves the house. There is no tearful goodbye, no planning, no warning. One day the ministry falls and the next she is as good as a widower.

A ministry official calls round three days later and she invites her in for tea and explains that she has seen the error of her ways.

There is ash in the fireplace. An old doll belonging to her daughter sits half-charred in the mess.

Edward Tonks, she says, died one week ago. She says she killed him. She sits at her dinner table, prim and proper and sips tea that is far too sweet. She says she will support the dark lord. The words taste like poison.

Narcissa calls round two weeks later. They don’t talk.

Ted dies alone, bravely, and Andromeda doesn’t know until she hears it on the radio. She allows herself an hour to mourn and then puts the kettle on. Her daughter will be here soon.

[5]

Andromeda does not want Remus Lupin as a son-in-law.

But he marries Nymphadora and she can see the way his eyes soften and his wrinkles turn to laugh lines when he’s around her.

Despite her discomfort she finds that he is an easy man to love. But she is scared of him leaving; he is older than he should be and more tired than she can stand to see in one man and somedays she can almost see death lurking behind his eyes.

Nymphadora does not know how to put mourning aside. She has never had to learn. It is Andromeda’s deepest desire that she never has too.

Remus leaves for Hogwarts when the call comes through. Nymphadora doesn’t beg him to stay.

Andromeda feels she has no right to ask for his safety.

Teddy cannot speak but his hair turns musky grey-brown as soon as the door slams shut and he wails.

[6]

Remus has barely been gone half an hour before Nymphadora stands and checks her wand.

Here, Andromeda is allowed to beg. She doesn’t. She already knows how this story ends.

Teddy cries and cries once both his parents are gone and she does nothing to stop him. She joins him.

She is far too tired to put it aside today.

[7]

Andromeda leaves through the floo for Hogwarts on the afternoon of the fourth of May, Teddy clasped tight in her arms.

She knows that her daughter and son-in-law are dead or they would be home by now.

Luckily she has done this before. The deaths and the war are nothing new. She knows what the survivors need. They need life.

Professor McGonagall greets her at the Hogwarts gates. Her eyes are sad. Andromeda waves her condolences away and asks about Potter. She doesn’t know him well but he is Teddy’s godfather and he is – above all else – a survivor.

Potter holds Teddy like a lifeline, just as she knew he would. She corrects his hold and then leaves to see her children a final time.

On the way she passes the dead death eaters and slows at a familiar face. She allows her elder sister a moment’s memorial and moves on.

[8]

As an old woman Andromeda Tonks has few complaints. She misses her husband, and her daughter, and her cousin, and her son-in-law and even her parents after a fashion.

She doesn’t miss anything else.

Teddy is with her for her last days. There are others too, even Narcissa stops by a few times, but it is only Teddy who stays.

His eyes are wet with unfallen tears; as though if he allows them to fall time will speed up and he will be alone.

Andromeda is pleased that this will be Teddy’s first death he can remember. That he will not learn mourning as she did, that he will weep like a babe again instead of soldiering on alone.

Still, she wishes, more than anything, that she could outlive him so he would not have to do this. She even considers, for one moment, becoming a ghost.

But Teddy will be fine. Teddy will be well.


End file.
